St Louis College of Pharmacy - Prescripto Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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1933 PRESCRIPTO The Missouri Botanical Garden ....- . ff- ----F-MW-Y H -I .1 .. If . V. 9 N 1857, after much deliberation and a world-wide observation of plants and flowers in the various countries, Henry Shaw began to plan what is now the Missouri Botanical Garden. At the time, he little realized that it would one day rate with the leading botanical gardens of the world. This garden now exhibits as fine a variety of botanical displays as any person has ever had the opportunity to behold. Included are flowers and plants of all kinds and descriptions. A few years ago a garden for the growing of medicinal plants was established, so that students of medicine and pharmacy now have the opportunity of examining the objects of the vegetable materia medica in the living state. - Necessity of expansion has caused the development of a branch of the Missouri Botanical Garden at Gray's Summit, bordering the Meramec River. The writer has had the pleasure of visiting this branch, which at the time was displaying the most magnificent variety of orchids he has ever seen. This branch furnishes much of the material for the displays at the main garden in St. Louis. The Garden has a wonderful museum and library, the latter of which has been at our disposal for the purpose of obtaining material for our drug themes. The library has been fortunate in securing the Sturtevant Library, one of the most complete collections of old herbals and similar works in the world. The students of the College have spent many interesting days at the Garden and have gained much valuable information which they will not soon forget. Page Seventy Fwe

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193 3 PRE9CRIP'1'lJ An Educational Postmortem by Senior X T IS about over, and being a serious-minded sort of a cuss I'm wondering if I should be given a degree or demoted to the freshman class, or perhaps pre- freshman class. I can't ask any of my friends or associates, because now that we are facing so many problems, honestly I'm afraid they, in the new spirit of frankness might tell me a lot of things which'I'd better not know. The nearest approach to the solution that I can discover is to imagine what I'd tell my son if he was embarking on the educational voyage. I think I'd advise him first to keep his senses alert for every fact, sign, deduction, or indication that promotes his judgment in the appraisal of values. I don't mean in terms of price tickets or percentage deductions, I have in mind the ability to arrange the things, tangible and intangible, which are liable to be allotted to him by life. I think his education should teach him to unscramble the deck and be able to recognize and pick out the aces and kings and let someone else fight over the deuces and treys. If he can't do that he's bound to dissipate most of his energy following cold trails. I'd tell him also, Son, you may not be a genius, but if you can't use the intelligence and knowledge you have, you're a fool. lid advise hirn to think through every statement he hears and every problem assigned to him, and if he canit reconcile the facts with his logic and intelligence, either demand an explanation or ask to be failed in that part of his work. The only time knowl- edge is of any value is in emergencies, and knowledge is the ability to apply what you know, and you never know anything until you understand it. I'd tell him, too, to train himself in this old game of rubbing elbows, and what's really important, doing it without breaking or even wanting to break the other fellow's upper extremity. The other chap may be just as far removed from his simian ancestors as you are. There is just as much in favor of his being right as in your being right. Even if you feel sure he's wrong, the chances are if you'll think back you'll recall a couple of instances in which you also erred. Learn to accept from him the things that square with your sense of right, and, if there are things you can't condone, let him keep them and don't feel that you are doing him a favor by so doing. I'd advise him to learn twenty-five per cent more about his profession than the average practitioner. I'd do this because I know that mediocrity never allowed any man to be entirely happy. For the sake of his continued happiness I'd urge upon him the importance of learning how to invest all his energies. That's why we all look back on our college days with the tears of sweet recollection oozing so freely, for at no time during life are our energies so completely and pleasantly absorbed as when we are rah-rahing our way through school. I'd explain to him that he will hear of a great many other things he should get in return for his investment, but that if he would analyze them carefully they would prove to be corollaries of some of the foregoing. If he accomplished these things I'd seize his hand after the Exercises were over and say, Son, you've done a fine job. SENIOR X. Page Seventy Four

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1933 PR1nSCRIP'1'O Herbals IKE the other sciences, botany had its origin in practical human needs. Food, shelter, and clothing were the first objects that led men's attention to plants, and perhaps at the same time, the necessity of relief from pain and fatigue. In the latter instance, man perhaps found what he wanted in certain plants, and he became cognizant of drugs. The knowledge of medicinal plants for a long time remained traditional, being handed on from wise man to wise man of the tribe. 'It is at a compara- tively late time that we find any systematic attempt to preserve in a written form what had been accumulated during centuries without records. The-- ophrastus gathered all that could be learned about plants of all kinds in his time. The encyclopedic Pliny has preserved much of importance and interest to our generation, and we have in addition the mediaeval encyclopedists. But the works of these men are of general rather than special interest, and it is Dioscorides who first presents us with a comprehensive and systematic materia medica. The name herbal has been given to the type of book of which many were issued during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. They contain descriptions, usually illustrated, of plants and animals employed in medicine, and were written by physicians for physicians. As their contents comprise, in the majority, plants, the name herbal is not improperly applied to them. The illustrations accompanying the descriptions of plants in these works are in themselves worthy of special study. They vary from the crudest, ahnost helpless representation to the finest design, which, while striving at accuracy, are also fitted to the finest decorative principle of fitting in significant form the space given to it on the page. In some cases they are colored, in others black and white, and it is in the latter that we find the most delicate artistic expression. The library of the Missouri Botanical Garden possesses one of the finest collections of herbals and other works on medical botany of the time preceding Linnaeus in the world. For the historian of medicine and pharmacy this col- lection, including the Sturtevant collection, is a library of incalculable impor- tance. If We had the space at command, we would expatiate at some length on the various treasures in this collection. As it is, we shall select for remark a few of the more celebrated. Herbarius Latimts, published at Mainz in 1484, by Peter Schoeifer. This is also known as the Herbarius in Latino, Herbarius Mogimtinus, Herbarius Patcwinus, and Latin H erbarius. This is divided into fifteen chapters on drugs, and an index to ninety-six drugs, all illustrated. The copy in the Garden is of the rare first edition, and apparently the only one in America. Later editions are in existence, but they are inferior to the first in point of typography. The work of Mace? Floridus. This work is interesting from the circum- stance that it is in verse, the author is not known, the name of Aemilius Macer being added in all probability in order to give the book a vogue. It was issued at Paris about 1490, and the copy is without mutilations. The virtues of seventy-seven drugs are extolled. The Hortus Scmitatis or Garden of Health, published at Mainz in 1491. The title was popular at one time, and this work is probably based on earlier ones. It describes a large number of plants-435 of them-and other articles found in apothecary shops of the time, and is rich in illustrations. Herbarium of Otto Brunfels, 1530. This work shows the great progress that had been made in the depiction of medicinal plants and in printing. The Page Seventy Sw: